


Cold, And Then Gone

by Unfair_Verona



Category: Alias (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Conditioning, F/M, Hospitals, Psychic Abilities, Remote Viewing, Telekinesis, Telepathy, Unethical Experimentation
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-26
Updated: 2018-02-22
Packaged: 2019-01-23 16:29:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,403
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12511516
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Unfair_Verona/pseuds/Unfair_Verona
Summary: She'd blocked it all out, all the experiments and the horror of her childhood--and the boy with abilities just like hers. Until a door long-closed was forced open and they met again.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I got the inspiration for this while binge watching "Stranger Things." The idea wouldn't go away so I decided to write it down. This isn't going to be a very long story, maybe three chapters or so. Please let me know what you think! :)

The pounding of feet grew louder behind her, voices called her name, but she kept running. Some part of her knew that this was foolish and futile—they would catch her and then she would be punished for disobeying. She hadn’t intended to, hadn’t woken up that morning determined to be defiant, it had simply happened. It was because of the experiments.

 

She’d been enduring them for years, for as long as she could remember. At first, when she was a younger child, it was all so very easy, almost fun, even. Putting different puzzles together, looking at pictures and pointing out mistakes, finding her way out of mazes, remembering patterns of blinking lights—but then things had changed when Dr. Sloane came and took her to a different place, where everything was very blank and cold; the air smelled too-clean and yet not at the same time, there was something lurking underneath—coppery, ugly. 

She would be made to sit in a small room, with a mirror on the wall that wasn’t really a mirror, it was a place where Dr. Sloane and the Other People could watch her. They would stick wires all over her head and then ask her questions. A blank card held in front of her face: “What’s on the other side, Sydney?”

Confused, she would say, “I don’t know.” 

And They would say, “Try again.” (The tone a little harder, their eyes a little narrower.)

She didn’t like that look, but really, what did They expect from her? It was an absurd request and she wondered if it might be some kind of trick.

“Concentrate, Sydney.” The voice would grow clipped, now, short of patience. “What’s on the other side?”

She huffed in annoyance, but decided to humor them, because she was tired of sitting in the uncomfortable plastic chair and she wanted to go back to her room. 

As Sydney glared at the card, suddenly hating it, a headache curled up behind her ears, almost like a living entity stretching and waking in her skull. Everything shifted round, and then she could somehow see both through the card and behind it at the same time—and there it was. 

“Figure 8,” she whispered breathlessly, startled.

This earned her a smile that made her skin crawl.

After she did so well with the cards, the tests grew more challenging: she would have to tell Dr. Sloane what was sitting on a table in the next room (a small model car) and then things in places further away—downstairs, upstairs, and eventually outside.

Her head ached so badly during these tests that her teeth rattled and felt like they might uproot themselves and fly from her head, sometimes blood trickled out of her nose and dotted the front of her drab hospital gown. 

Yet she kept doing so well—and when she did well she earned rewards, like chocolate and apples (which she loved) and books (which she loved more.) The further she searched and the harder she looked, the more uncomfortable she became, and yet They were relentless. One day, during a particularly long session, there came a weird kind of _pop-whoosh_ sensation from deep within the recesses of her head and some of the pressure released. Sydney was so overcome with relief, slumped over in a stupor, that she barely even noticed what she’d done (blown out all the lights and moved the table clean across the room without even touching it).

Things only got worse after that: the tests more strenuous, the sessions longer.

When she whined, They took her books. When she wouldn’t shatter the glass in front of her just by looking at it, They took away her blankets. When she didn’t find the numbers on the paper hundreds of miles away, They shocked her.

It had been too much, Sydney was exhausted and scared and angry and she didn’t want to See anything else. She was tired of being locked in a room, projecting her mind outward to places that she was never allowed to go. 

 

What happened that day had mostly been an accident, though Sydney knew by now that she did have some control over the things that she could do. She hadn’t meant to hurt anyone, but she couldn’t stand any more shocks, that burn-sting-jump, like a hundreds wasps injected into her veins. Three of Them had been slammed into the walls, crumpling at weird angles, and the door was open, now. Adrenaline simply took over, and Sydney ran.

She was quick and scrappy and knew instinctively how to hide and evade in the way that only frightened children know. She found her way to a section of the compound that she’d never been to before, a sparse hallway lined with doors. The rooms were all mostly empty, except for one. A face peeked out, watching curiously. Sydney stopped, tried to catch her breath. It was just blue eyes at first, really, that she noticed, and then the rest of him: a boy, probably around her age, skinny, with an angular face and hair cut short like hers. 

“Where did you come from?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” she replied, feeling suddenly dizzy.

More footsteps, pounding in the distance, more shouting. The boy frowned. “They’re looking for you,” he said.

She nodded.

He motioned her towards his room. “Come on.”

Sydney bolted forward, ducking inside. The boy shut the door and she slid to the floor, impossibly weary. She closed her eyes and then opened them a moment later when she felt a hand on her arm—thin, chilly fingers.

“You look sick,” said the boy.

“I’m fine,” she retorted stubbornly. 

He didn’t seem to believe her, but he didn’t push the subject, either. “What’s your name?” he asked.

“Sydney,” she whispered.

“Sydney,” the boy repeated, as if testing the word, the sound. “ _Sid-nee_. All right. I’m Julian.”

“I didn’t know there were any other kids here.”

He frowned. “There’s been lots.”

“What happened to them?”

A shrug of bony shoulders. “They left.”

“Where did they go?”

“I don’t know.” The boy—Julian—went over to a small table in a corner of the room. A plastic tray of half-eaten dinner rested there. Sydney felt her stomach growl obnoxiously. She hadn’t eaten since the day before. He picked up an apple and brought it to her. 

“Here,” he said, kneeling down beside her, pressing it into her hand. “You can have this. I don’t like them.”

She gratefully sank her teeth into the flesh of the apple, tearing through it as juice ran down her chin, barely stopping until there was nothing but core and stem, the skeleton of the thing.

“Were they hurting you?” the boy asked. “Is that why you ran away?”

She didn’t say anything.

“They make you look for things, right? In other places?”

The widening of her eyes served as confirmation. “I do it, too,” Julian said. “The other ones couldn’t, that’s why they went away.”

Sydney’s mouth was dry, despite the wetness of the fruit still clinging to her lips. “Do you…can you move things with your eyes? Or break them?” Her voice came out sounding course, almost sandpapery.

She noticed that his hand shook a little. 

“Things,” he said. “And people.”

A twitch of nausea rose in her stomach as she remembered bodies hitting walls, the crunch of bone. “What people?”

He shrugged again. “Whoever They say.”

“But…you don’t want to do it, right?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“But—”

“ _Sssh_ ,” the boy hissed suddenly, clamping a hand over her mouth. His skin smelled faintly of chocolate. 

There were footsteps in the corridor, and then right outside. The knob began to turn. Sydney started to panic, hyperventilate. She watched Julian’s eyes dart from her face to the door and then back again. She tried to conjure that force up from the bottom of her mind again, but she was so weak. Remembering the pain of the shocks, she strained to press beyond the screeching headache hum, and the door slammed closed again. It wouldn’t keep them out, though, she wasn’t strong enough. 

Cold fingers found hers again, squeezing encouragingly. Both she and the boy focused on the door, holding it shut, keeping Them briefly at bay, even though it was a losing battle. They held it for a minute or so, together. The lights in the hallway flickered crazily, and through the eerie flashing Sydney could see the focus in his eyes, the almost icy determination, and never had she been so grateful for anyone before. 

But then something snapped inside her head, and she screamed in pain. The door swung open, violently, and They came in, grabbing her, dragging her away. She was a limp ragdoll, unable to fight. Her vision swam, spots and flashes, red and then dark. She thought that she could hear the boy’s voice calling her name, but soon everything was swallowed up completely.

She never saw him again.

 

X

 

Sydney was weak for a long time after that, her mind foggy and unreliable, like shadows shifting along a dusty floor, never making the same pattern twice. Dr. Sloane was amazingly forgiving, became gentler, but she still didn’t trust him, even after the experiments stopped.

She couldn’t move things anymore. She could still See, though not as well as before, and They didn’t make her do it as often, and then eventually quit asking altogether. Sydney thought she’d be sent away, like the others—whoever they had been—but instead she was given more freedom. There was a new room for her, one with windows and sunlight and color. She was allowed to walk outside, go swimming, run. She had a tutor, a nice lady named Emily who brought her lots of books and always smiled gently in a way that made Sydney feel both happy and like she might cry at the same time. After her tutoring sessions, she went to the gym, where she flipped and tumbled and stood on her hands. She liked the movement, the brief sensation that she was flying. There was a new set of people around her all the time, and Their eyes were not nearly so cruel, and when she made a mistake They did not punish her, only asked that she do better. They taught her to punch, kick, roll, duck—Sydney did all this very well, and Dr. Sloane was very proud.

He made it a point to tell her nearly every day how special she was, and how she was like a daughter to him, how he only wanted the best for her.

 

Sydney never spoke about that night, and much of it was locked away in some far corner of her mind, as were all the years before, all the shocks and shattering glasses and wires. Until she could pretend that it never even happened at all. And she never mentioned the boy, Julian, and nobody ever said anything about him to her. Though she did still think about him from time to time, she forced herself to remember him the way a child recalls an imaginary friend. She was nearly grown, and that whole time in her life was now strange and distant, like a blurred dream at the very edges of waking.

She had work to do, work that she was being prepared for. She was important. She was keeping people safe. More time passed, and Sydney was mostly grown: she’d gotten tall, with long arms and legs—wiry, They called her. Strong. 

Eventually, she was prepared enough to be sent out on missions to retrieve intel. She excelled at this, but was saddened by it, because she got to see the Outside for a while, only to have to return to the place where she’d spent all of her life, a place where she was never really alone. Though They were kinder about it, They still watched her all the time, controlled everything she did, and sometimes that old anger would twitch in the back of Sydney’s mind and her hands would tremble and she’d force it away.

Whatever had happened in her childhood, it left her with one remaining gift; it allowed her to create a space in her mind, a quiet place, somewhere between sleep and wakefulness, a pocket where she could hide, where she knew that she was safe and nobody was watching her or making her do things. The space could look like whatever she wanted it to, and so she modeled it after a little café on a street corner—she’d seen it once in a photograph and did not know the city or the country, but that didn’t matter, because it was only for her.

 

 

Now, Sydney was being sent to Milan ( _she loved the name, Mee-lan, it sounded so silky and elegant_ ) to retrieve a disk. This disk, according to Their intelligence, was to be found on the third floor of an old archives building. The building seemed nondescript enough, housing many old books and maps and city plans, but this was mainly window dressing to cover something much more insidious. It was surveilled and guarded quite well, and there were several layers of security that she would have to bypass in order to reach her destination. Others would be helping with that, the people with the technical expertise, like her friend Marshall (one of the few of Them who she’d actually allowed herself to grow close to). Sydney’s job was to simply get inside, get the disk, and get out. And of course, to deal with anyone who might try to get in her way. 

This was fine. She didn’t mind fighting, hurting people with her hands, feet, even other weapons—because she was doing it for a good reason, and because it was fair—she was utilizing natural strength, speed, training, not tossing her enemies through the air with her mind like some _freak_.

At times, though, Sydney mused to herself as she made her way carefully around a corner towards the main archives room on the third floor, she wished that she could still See as well as she’d been able to in childhood. It would make these missions easier—but it would be cheating, and it might re-open a door that she preferred remain closed.

“Ok, you’re in,” came the voice over her comm, which was hidden strategically in the form of an earring. 

Sydney opened the door and peered around at the many rows of shelving. Drawer 3B. She crossed the room to a large filing cabinet with a series of drawers. A keypad awaited the proper combination, which she had memorized. She wasn’t sure how They had come by this particular bit of information, once They would have used her. Now They might have had to persuade someone. It was for the greater good, of course, but it still made her stomach ache a little to think that she might have been able to spare another a bit of pain. She concentrated on punching in the combination, the keypad briefly flashed green and the drawers were unlocked. 3B, she soon discovered, was empty. 

“Shit,” she whispered, mostly to herself, though They were all listening in, “it’s not here.”

After a moment of deliberation, Sydney knew what she had to do; this mission was too important for her to fail (though, she reminded herself, she didn’t know exactly _why_ it was so important). Still. She took a deep breath and concentrated, looking, pushing outward with her mind. It was surprisingly easy, even after all these years, and that worried her. Perhaps it had never really faded, maybe it was only that she’d been blocking herself, all this time. Still.

She could See the disk, now, it was on the other side of the room, not in a drawer but inside a case tucked on one of the shelves, between a series of old blueprints of buildings that probably didn’t exist anymore. It was an odd place to hide the thing, essentially in plain sight, but there was no time to ponder over it. Sydney darted over and grabbed it down, sighing in relief. Then she heard the telltale click of a gun behind her head. The comm hissed, and then went dead in her ear. 

“Turn around,” said a cold male voice.

Sydney complied, her muscles readying themselves, planning. She knew that this had all been going too well, she’d honestly been anticipating trouble long before she’d ever gotten this far. But what she had not anticipated was the face that she saw when she turned.

He was older ( _of course he would be older_ , she told herself. _He grew up, just like you_ ) and yet he still looked very young, had the same cheekbones and unsmiling mouth, the same large, icy eyes. 

_The boy from the doorway, holding out an apple, fingers on her arm. Sid-nee_. (Mouth wrapping around her name, drawing it out.)

He hesitated. She saw it, that flicker of recognition that showed that he knew her, too, that he was surprised (and yet somehow not at the same time.)

Sydney took this opportunity, her body snapping into motion, striking, knocking him back. He came at her, she attacked again, and in a flurry of movement they went back and forth, a dance of throwing and dodging blows. She disarmed him, the gun was knocked from his hand. He moved for it, and then—

 _Pop-whoosh_. Some long-closed door in her mind was blown violently open, and the gun slid away from his reach and over to her, as if drawn by a magnet. Sydney grabbed it. He glared, looked to the right, a sudden twitch of eye muscles, and then a heavy book flew off a shelf and crashed hard against the side of her head, knocking her off balance. The small case flew out of her hand and she scrambled for it at the same time he did. 

The lights began to flicker erratically, blinking on and off. She stretched out a hand, burying the voice that suddenly cried up from inside her to stop, and then he was abruptly knocked backward several feet. 

There would be time later to process it all, time to be horrified and confused, but now she had one goal. Sydney snatched up the disk while he was still down, then darted out the door. Her comm blinked back on. “I have it,” she gasped. “I need an extraction.”

 

 

Dr. Sloane was very pleased, They were pleased, and that was what mattered. The disk was handed over and she was de-briefed. With a detached air, Sydney described the man that she had fought, as if he were some unknown agent, no different than anyone she’d ever dealt with before. They didn’t have him on any surveillance footage, some kind of electrical interference had rendered the cameras useless.

Feeling numb, she sat by the window and ate dinner without really tasting it. She turned the pages of an old favorite book, but it failed to comfort her, she was too edgy, and strange memories were rising in the back of her mind, like specters climbing out of dark water. She put the book away and took a shower, then climbed into bed. Her room suddenly felt too-large, and empty. 

It occurred to Sydney that Julian could have stopped her, had he really wanted—that though her limbs ached and she was sporting a series of blooming bruises and a huge welt on the side of her head, he hadn’t really tried to hurt her.

(But she hadn’t really tried to hurt him, either.)

She lay down and drew in several deep breaths, letting herself slip down into her quiet place, needing it more than ever. Her street corner soon appeared, the little table waited at her café, and she sank down into the chair with a sigh, staring out at the comforting backdrop of shops, sidewalk and trees. 

And then there came footsteps. She swung her head around, and her eyes widened to see Julian standing there. He seemed very casual, as if this was some sort of planned meeting. “Hello,” he said. 

Finding her voice, she stammered, “How…how did you…you can’t be here!” (He wasn’t here, she decided, it was her mind, it was stress.)

“Maybe I’m not,” he answered casually, taking a seat in the chair opposite hers. The audacity made her dizzy. He simply sat there and stared at her for a moment, then shook his head. “Sydney. Sid-nee. I always knew that you were out there somewhere.”

As outraged as she was that he was here, even as a phantom of her own subconscious, curiosity was winning out. 

“What happened to you?” she asked. “After that night?”

He chuckled mirthlessly, folded his hands. “After that, I was taken away and sent to England. To another facility, much like the one where we were kept. Oh, They pretended it was a school of sorts, less of a prison or a hospital, but I wasn’t fooled. You’ve been trained as well, I see. Good soldiers, us. You always were strong.”

“Who…who do you work for?”

“People similar to those that you work for, I’m sure.”

Syndey shook her head. “No, I don’t think so.”

He tilted his head to the side, studied her face. “Why not?”

“Because we’re not on the same side.”

For some reason, Julian seemed to find this amusing, his lips curled up into an uneven smile. 

“What do you want the disk for?” she pressed.

“ _I_ don’t want it. I couldn’t care less about it, personally, but my Employers have a vested interest, and so…” He shrugged, then asked, “Why do you want it?”

“Interests of National Security,” she answered primly.

He laughed. It was a not-unpleasant sound, and it made a weird shivery feeling dart up the back of her spine. “Is that what They told you?”

She bristled. “It’s the _truth_.”

“How can you trust Them, after what They did to you?”

 _No, no_. 

He leaned forward. “Did They stop hurting you, Sydney?”

 _Burn-sting-jump. Flashing lights, the rattle of a doorknob_. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

His eyes softened minutely. “I doubt that very much. You can still move things.”

“That was an accident. I haven’t…not in years. That stopped a long time ago.” Sydney paused, then added, “You still can, too. Move things. Break things.”

“And people,” he said, trying on a cruel smile, chasing the softness away.

“You’re not really here. I’m leaving now.”

“Fine, leave,” Julian waved his hand dismissively. “I’ll just find you again.”

She staunchly ignored him. “I’m leaving,” she told him again. She closed her eyes, counting backwards until the scenery peeled away and she felt herself returning, until she was in her room, alone.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here is the next chapter for you, sorry it took so long! I was working on other stuff and this little story fell by the wayside, regrettably. Please let me know what you think! :)

Sydney focused on the work that she needed to do, trying not to think about Julian’s sudden reappearance in her life and the potential implications. He’d essentially broken into her mind. She realized that she should be more angry about that than she was. Instead she was filled with curiosity. Her days were spent working and training as usual, she was being pushed harder and observed more closely, and there was a friction in the air because she could tell that it was all leading up to something. 

Dr. Sloane pulled her aside after one of her sessions and spoke to her with a falsely pleasant tone and a smile that Sydney now found remarkably ugly. 

“I want you to know that I’m so very proud of the work you’ve been doing lately,” he told her, placing a hand on her shoulder. She fought the urge to recoil. “You’ve grown up so much. I’ve always thought of you as a daughter. And everything I did—the things I put you through—I did to make you strong. Because you are very special. And what we do, it’s so very important. If I’ve been strict it was for a reason. I know you see that now.”

She nodded, but she wondered. Doubts were starting to rise, and she looked at everyone around her with a new wariness, a prickling along her skin, as if her body remembered something that her mind would not, and was warning her.

 

 

One night, a few days later, Sydney stumbled into bed with sore, aching limbs and lay there for a moment, staring at the ceiling and the various shadow-patterns climbing slowly along the walls. There was a sharp smell to the compound at night, some bitter tinge of antiseptic, circled by hints of juniper and ozone. It was a disquieting smell, it reminded her of Before, of the time that was beating against the doors of her mind like a frantic animal. She had been avoiding her street corner ever since he’d invaded it, but she couldn’t deny her curiosity. Julian was the one person who seemed to really see her, look at her like a person and not a thing kept around for its usefulness. Sydney found herself modulating her breathing, counting down and falling back, until she felt the space forming around her. It was silent at first, as usual. She was alone. With a sigh, she settled herself at the table. And waited.

She didn’t have to wait long. Julian appeared a few moments later, turning a corner around one of the buildings. He spotted her and Sydney saw the faintest hint of a smile flash across his face. “Come here often?” he quipped as he sat down at the table. 

“Ugh,” she replied, with a revulsion she didn’t feel. 

He smiled, wider now. She realized that he might actually be quite handsome. “Not happy to see me?”

“What do you want?”

“I just wanted to see you again,” he said, and there was an alarming amount of sincerity in the words. 

Sydney made a noncommittal sound and stared across the street.

“You know,” Julian went on, “I always wondered about you. I knew that there were other children where we were, but I couldn’t tell you what any of them looked like. If they had names, I forgot long ago. But you, Sid-nee, you I always remembered. After they sent me away, I’d wonder about you, what they were doing to you, if you were alright.”

She contemplated telling him that she hadn’t forgotten him, either, that she kept him in the back of her mind like a ghost. “Did they…were you punished for helping me?” she found herself asking.

Julian shrugged. “In a sense. After they dragged you away, I lost my temper. One of Them got a fractured skull. The other never walked or spoke again.”

Sydney shivered. “That’s when they decided that perhaps my talents would be better served elsewhere,” he finished.

She wondered about those particular _talents_. Had he always been inherently cruel, or was that something that had been bred into him over the years, during their childhood in captivity? It made her consider her own capacity for cruelty, the people that she’d hurt. She looked down at her hands for a moment. Her nails were growing in jaggedly. 

“You said there were others,” she said, forcing herself to look up, to meet his eyes. ( _So blue. Disarming._ ) “So there are more people like us?”

He shook his head. “Not like us, no. Certainly not like you. You were…special.” He laughed. “I swear, I always dreamed of seeing you again. I had this naïve hope that maybe you’d end up where I was, that we’d be partners.”

“Not in this life, I guess,” she said, and Sydney was momentarily thrown by the sad, bitter feeling that was crawling around her rib cage.

“Do you ever leave this spot?” he asked, changing the subject, looking around at her borrowed scenery.

“No. I never really thought about it.”

He leaned back casually, observing the silent world around them. “Well, this is nice and all, but it must get boring after awhile.”

“I don’t know if there’s anything else,” Sydney admitted. “I built this place to look like one particular street I saw in a picture. I never considered any kind of surrounding area.”

“Well, try. Maybe your mind will fill in the blanks, the way it does in dreams.”

“This isn’t a dream,” she said. “I’m not sure what it is, but it’s realer than a dream.”

“It’s in-between,” Julian said, drumming his fingers on the table. “Liminal. Hypnagogic. Hypnopompic. All those funny words They would use. Did they ever play the Nightmare Game with you?”

Her fingertips went cold and she found herself gripping the edge of the table. “I...I don’t know. I don’t think so.” The words came out stumbling, uneasy.

“They liked to experiment with brain waves, induce different states of consciousness. They were always interested in the in-between. Sleep paralysis. Awake and not at the same time, unable to move or scream. You experience strange hallucinations, things in the room, on the ceiling, or laying right on top of your chest.”

He related all of this very calmly, with an almost clinical detachment. Sydney imagined the horror of it, the screams dying unheard inside of his chest. The coldness in him was becoming more understandable. Her heart was clamoring uncomfortably now, making her dizzy. 

“The worst part was, I never knew exactly how long I was there,” he continued with the horrible tale. “Time doesn’t move the same way in-between. It felt like days. I suppose in reality it may have been an hour at most. And that is how I learned about liminality.”

Sydney still ardently hoped, now more than ever, that Julian was nothing more than a projection of her subconscious, though she was beginning to suspect otherwise. That would be far easier to deal with than the alternative. There were too many emotions suddenly rising, coaxing memory along with them. 

“Come on,” he said, standing, seeming to sense her discomfort. ( _There was that understanding, he saw, he knew_.) He took her by the hand. Hers slipped inside of his easily, too easily, and another memory threatened to seize her. How powerful they’d been together, how strong, even for just a brief moment, two children against monsters.

“Where are we going?” Sydney asked, trying to keep her voice steady. 

He brought them to the edge of the space, after that there was nothing. “Let’s see what happens now,” he urged, giving her hand a brief squeeze. She was actually curious herself. 

They didn’t fall off into some nether space, instead their surroundings grew around them: pavement beneath their feet, brick and steel blooming slowly into a cityscape. It didn’t resemble any city that Sydney had ever seen, exactly, it was a strange amalgam of old and modern, like Tokyo blended with Victorian London. 

“This will do,” Julian said approvingly.

She wasn’t sure which of their minds was causing this change, this growth. Perhaps it was both of them, together, their thoughts blending fluidly into perfect cohesion. 

“I’ve never been inside any of these buildings,” she confessed. “I don’t even know if they have insides.”

“They do now,” he announced, pulling her along. Their feet made echoing sounds as they ran. He gripped the handle to a door, yanked it open. It was some generic-looking lobby, like the sort that would be found in an office complex. Off to the side was a stairwell. His eyes lit upon seeing it, and Sydney found herself almost, almost laughing as they raced up flight after flight of stairs, her heart thumping with exertion and also something, something else that she didn’t care to examine too closely.

Up, up, they went, until he pushed open the door at what she assumed was the top floor. It opened onto a large flat rooftop. All around them, the city lay splayed and silent, like a languid dreaming woman on a bed.

“Do you ever hate,” he started, panting, catching his breath, “seeing so many places but never actually being a part of them? It’s like we’re separate from the rest of the world, outside of it. Almost like we’re less real than everybody else.”

She did hate it, hated it more than she had ever realized. Sydney had often felt exactly the same way, but had never quite been able to put the feeling into words. 

“We don’t belong anywhere,” she found herself saying, with a nod. 

“Is that why you built this place?” Julian wondered. His voice had grown softer, like evening.

“I built…I mean, originally I built it to be alone,” Sydney admitted. “I wanted a place where They couldn’t find me. It’s so hard to be watched all the time. Like you said, it makes me feel less real. Like…”

“Like you only exist when They’re looking at you. Because you were created solely for their benefit.” Julian gave her a knowing glance. “I’m sorry I intruded on your solitude.” That last bit seemed like forced politeness, though not sarcasm.

“It’s ok,” Sydney told him. (It was.)

They stood side by side in silence for a few long moments. Then Julian spoke.

“Tomorrow, they’re sending you to Belize, to meet with a man. He’s supposed to turn over some documents. He’s a decoy. There will be another man, he has a scar by his right eye. He’s your real target.”

“Why are you telling me this?” she asked warily. Some faint alarm bells had begun to ring. She was, in fact, traveling to Belize the next day, and only a handful of people knew that.

“To prove a point,” replied Julian. “And also because I’m interested.”

“Interested in what?”

He didn’t answer, just looked around. “I like it here,” he said. “It’s quiet. You're right, it’s so rare that we get to experience quiet. Not for people like us. You never answered my question before, did They stop hurting you?”

Sydney nodded, a slow, weird movement.

“They’ll start again. It’s almost time.” The words should have been ominous, but he said them in such a casual, shrugging sort of way that she was left wondering.

“Time for what?” She noticed that the sun was slipping lower on the horizon. Sydney wasn’t sure if she was making that happen, or him. Time had never really moved here before in any discernable way.

“They’re looking for a man from long ago, trying to bring him back. That’s what they wanted us for.”

A puzzled frown found its way to her mouth. “They trained us to be _soldiers_.”

“That was only the first phase.”

She folded her arms. “You’re not making any sense.”

“Wait until they put you back in the tank. Then you’ll understand.”

“What tank?”

“You don’t remember. I’m not surprised. You do a good job of blocking things out. You’re so very strong.” It was the second time he had said that to her, called her strong. Hearing this gave her a warmth inside that she didn’t recognize. 

“I suppose I should be leaving you now,” said Julian. His hand reached out and squeezed her arm. “I need to be getting back. They monitor my brain waves fairly closely, I don’t want Them catching on.”

“Thank you,” she whispered. She realized that she didn’t want him to leave. The space was so much larger and vaster now, too wide for her to occupy all alone. 

“I’ll see you soon, Sydney,” he told her, the sincerity in the words giving her pause as he fixed her with those disarming eyes once again. ( _Eyes like a spider's web, a beckoning trap._ ) Then his hand fell away from her arm and when she turned around she was alone on the rooftop again.


	3. Chapter 3

After a long morning full of training, Sydney was summoned to a meeting with Dr. Sloane. He seemed to be in a good mood, which, paradoxically, set her on edge. She’d come to understand that whenever he was excited like this, with that manic glint in his eyes, he was about to ask her to do something. She was not wrong.

“I’d like you to do something for me,” he said, as soon as she had sat down in a chair across from him. “When you were a child, you had a remarkable aptitude for remote viewing. You called it ‘Seeing.’” The doctor smiled at her. “I believe that you never lost this ability, it has only lain dormant. And now, I need you to use it again.”

A cold chill wove through Sydney, threading her veins like a needle. Still, she ignored it and asked, “What do you want me to find?”

Dr. Sloane shook his head. “Not what. Who. I need you to look for a man. He’s been lost for a very long time. Not gone, just…misplaced.”

“What happened to him?” she asked. This would certainly not be the first time that he had asked her to locate someone.

“He had wonderful ideas, visions. He was gifted, so far ahead of his time,” Sloane went on, seeming enraptured. “It is because of his ideas that you are here now, that we can do this wonderful work. He could see an amazing future, a future that we will bring forth.”

“How?”

“Death comes for us all, he knew that. But he also believed that there was a way to transcend it. He locked his consciousness away, caught in a quantum space, awaiting the time when he would eventually return.”

“Why do you think that I can find him?” she asked.

An eerie wistfulness spread across Sloane’s face. “Because he is also looking for you. And I know if you reach out, he will answer.”

 

Later that afternoon, Syndey was brought in for what They called a trial session, a session that was to take place inside a sensory deprivation tank. “It will help your ability to reach outward with your mind. The lack of stimuli will allow you to be more receptive,” explained Dr. Sloane. 

The tank was enclosed, in the center of a room. It reminded Sydney of a large coffin. As soon as she saw it, she remembered what Julian had said to her. How had he known? He’d been right about Belize, it had turned out, and now about this; why did he know more about her own life than she did? It seemed that he wanted to help her: the intel that he’d given her about the decoy had been incredibly helpful, and she owed the success of that particular mission to him. But why? What was he getting out of it? She’d make a point figure that out later, Sydney decided, at the moment she had more pressing matters to attend to. 

Though the water was the exact temperature of her skin, she couldn’t help but feel a chill as she was helped into the tank. Wires were stuck all over her forehead and she felt herself begin to float, bobbing like a cork in the salt water. Then the chamber door closed, leaving her in utter darkness. She could feel her heart speeding up, her breathing coming faster. She didn’t like any of this, the absence of light, it was disorienting. 

“Just try to relax, Sydney,” came a voice over the intercom. “Focus on the Man.”

She didn’t want to focus on him. From the moment she’d heard his name—Milo Rimbaldi—an ugly feeling had crawled across her skin like a warning, and that feeling had only increased after Dr. Sloane had showed her some sketches of his face. He was sinister-looking, she thought, untrustworthy. Sydney prided herself on being able to read people fairly well, and all of her senses told her that this was a person to be avoided, with his hooked nose and deep-set eyes. But it was her job, and people were counting on her. At least, that was what she’d been told yet again, the constant refrain. Drawing in a deep, shaky breath, she forced herself to search. 

_Flashing, pulsing, at first—then a span of darkness. A void so impossible vast and cold, like it was piercing into every cell. He was so horrible, like a nightmare, long fingernails trying to pry apart her mind_.

It took every ounce of strength she possessed to keep from screaming. Images flooded her brain, The Man was sending them to her, perhaps—she could see writing on a paper, the turning of a key, something being put away. Something important. A large, black, rectangular case with a series of locks. A landscape with mountains and cliffs, a series of caves, hidden within them. They bombarded her, these pictures, and Syndey could barely process them all. She hated this intrusion, the way that she was powerless to stop the deluge. Finally, it ended. 

Feeling weak, loopy, and disoriented, she was pulled from the tank. After having barely a few minutes to recover, she was questioned rigorously by Dr. Sloane about what she had seen. He was thrilled by what she described, that same weird, manic light shining in his eyes, even brighter now. Sydney found this more than a little unsettling. 

Utterly shaken from what had happened to her during the session, she returned to her room. She was still chilled through and through, unable to get warm. She felt wrung-out, and also violated. That empty, tearing feeling, like all of her raw nerves had been exposed to a hungry, sucking void. She needed to find herself again. And also, she realized, she wanted to see Julian. 

 

She arrived at their usual meeting place on the street corner, and then waited for him to appear. The sky had changed shade again, now it seemed like it was approaching late afternoon, shadows were moving in a way that they hadn’t before. It made the space seem more real, more alive, but also like it was counting down to something, and this left her feeling wary. 

Sydney was so intently studying the shadows that she didn’t even feel him, until he placed a hand on her shoulder and she jumped, whirling around. 

“It’s alright, it’s just me,” Julian said, and the look on his face went from amused to concerned as he took in her shaky demeanor. “What’s wrong?” he asked. 

“You were right,” she said softly. “About the tank.”

“Oh.” A knowing look flooded his eyes. “I see. Tell me about it.”

“They wanted me to look for that Man, the one from a long time ago.”

Julian nodded grimly. “I know. They tried to make me look, too.”

Sydney glanced at him in surprise. “And?”

“And, he didn’t want me. I think he only wants you. “

She suppressed an urge to shudder at that statement. “Wants me for what?”

“Life, I suppose. To be reborn. I don’t know.” Sydney could tell that he did know, or at least he had some idea, but he wasn’t saying.

“Reborn how?” she asked.

Shrugging, Julian said, “I told you, I don’t know. Maybe as a child. Maybe you can be Mother to some sort of horrifying second coming. Or maybe it’s worse. Perhaps they’ll just hollow you out, shock you and torture you until you’re nothing but an empty shell waiting to be filled up.” He spoke in an even, almost casual way. 

Sydney hoped that this was all his sordid imagination, hoped that the truth was more benign, though she doubted it. “What if he just wants to talk?” she suggested.

Julian shook his head, his eyes narrowing. “I’ve encountered that Man, that thing. He doesn’t just want to talk. He’s hungry. For power. He wants to feast upon chaos and destruction.”

“You look tired,” she noted. Partly because she wanted to get off the subject, but also because it was true: he was paler than usual, perhaps thinner. His usually bright eyes were dull and filled with shadows. “What are They using you for?”

“Intel,” he replied. “Coordinates. Remote access, things of that nature. You’ll find out soon enough.” He coughed, a wet, rattling sound that made her wince.

“Come on.” Sydney reached for him, taking his hand, which was startlingly cold. “Walk with me.”

“What if I could find a way to keep him out?” she wondered as they made their way down the street. “Block him from finding me, from getting inside my head.”

“You couldn’t even keep _me_ out,” Julian said wryly.

_Maybe I didn’t want to_ , she realized, but didn’t say anything. Inside of hers, his hand was finally starting to warm.

 

They went up to the roof again, both of them seemed to like it there. Sydney found it nice to look out over the world that she—that they—had created, it made her feel strong, and safe, if only for a little while. “I was thinking the other day how I don’t even really know what I’m afraid of,” she reflected, staring out over the other rooftops. “I don’t even know if I’m bothered by heights. I was never allowed to have an opinion. If I needed to climb, I climbed. Walk on the edge of a building, I walked. I didn’t have the option of being afraid.”

Julian nodded, seeming to understand this.

“The fear of heights isn’t so much about the falling as it is about jumping,” he explained. “We’re secretly afraid that we’ll stand on the edge of some high up place and be possessed by the urge to leap off.”

Sydney had an idea. “Here, help me up,” she said, climbing so that she was sitting on the ledge of the roof. Tingles of vertigo ran through her blood as she looked at the street hundreds of feet below. “Are you scared?” he asked. 

“I can’t tell, yet,” she answered honestly.

“We can figure it out, easy,” he told her. “Trust me.”

Julian smiled and ran a finger along her cheek, the touch taking her by surprise. Then he brought his hands firmly to her waist and lifted her, tipping her backwards until she hung upside down—and though it wasn’t real, it was still frightening, the sensation of being so high in the air. “I’ve got you,” he assured her. 

She forced herself to look around, to see, to experience the bright adrenaline rush of fear screaming haywire through her veins until she couldn’t stand it anymore.

“Pull me back up!”

He did, and she tumbled into his arms, gripping his hands. His skin was so cold, always so cold. 

“How long do they keep you in the tank?” she asked, catching her breath.

“Too long,” he replied, looking away.

She rubbed his arms, tried to warm him again.

“They’re going to be relentless,” he told her after being silent for a moment. He turned back to face her, locking his eyes with hers in that way that left her oddly dizzy. “They’ve gotten this close, and now they’re going to push you to your limit.”

Sydney nodded. She should have known. They hadn’t eased up on her, they’d simply been biding time. She felt the sting of almost-tears behind her eyes and forced herself not to cry. The very last thing she wanted was to seem weak in front of him. 

“Has it been terribly lonely for you, all these years?” Julian wondered softly.

“Yes,” she answered. “It’s only ever been me and Them, since…well, you know. What about you?”

“There were many others, at the facility where I was sent, after,” he began. “Others my age, some older or younger. We were allowed to fraternize occasionally, but were strongly discouraged from forming attachments. I shared a room with another boy. I suppose, you could say we were friends. But he started acting out, challenging our handlers. One day, he tried to run away. He was caught. They sent for me, probably because they knew that I was closest to him. After thorough interrogation, during which I swore I’d had no knowledge of his plans for desertion, they said, “he’s a traitor. To prove that you are not a co-conspirator, you have to kill him. If you don’t, you will also die.”

 

“Were they bluffing?” Sydney wondered, horrified and yet not entirely shocked by this story.

“I’ll never know,” he said in a flat voice that indicated the story was over. She could see a flash of pain behind his eyes, something that he’d kept closely hidden and guarded. Then he changed, moving closer to her. He seemed to be studying her face very intently. “You’ve never even been kissed, have you?” he asked.

It was an unexpected question, and it caught her off-guard for a moment. “No,” she answered. “Not that it’s any of your business.” Sydney folded her arms, taking a step backward. “I should be getting back now,” she said. Her skin was starting to feel very warm and she didn’t know why.

 

The next day was filled with more sessions in the tank, longer this time. Sydney’s mind felt like Silly Putty, being pulled and yanked in all different directions, but her vitals were strong, so they pressed onward. Dr. Sloane was particularly interested in the case that she had seen in her vision, and also the caves in the mountains. She was instructed to ask where they were. She didn’t want to interact with The Man any more, and was struck with the sudden urge to run, as she had all those years before. But there was nowhere to run to, save for the place in her mind where she could hide. 

Hours later, she was still shaking and shivering, wrapped in a blanket in her room. She’d even asked Them to turn the thermostat up, but nothing worked. Sydney was beginning to understand why Julian was freezing all of the time. She realized that she just wanted to see him. Despite the way that he sometimes unnerved her, he was becoming an unlikely comfort and ally, the thing that was helping her keep her sanity. The events of the day had been grueling for her and rewarding for Sloane and the others: she had discovered the location of the caves, they were in Romania. As soon as Dr. Sloane had learned this, he had begun making plans, and Sydney learned that she was to be sent on a mission in less than a week, supposedly to retrieve the mysterious case that she had seen.

She didn’t want to go. A very bad feeling crawled all over her like clusters of insects. Anything to do with The Man—she still didn’t even like _thinking_ his name—would not bode well, she knew. But her feelings on the matter were irrelevant to Sloane. She was not given a choice.

Sydney realized that she wanted to see Julian, very badly. He was the only person who could understand what she was going through.

But this particular night, he never came. She waited on the street corner; there was nothing but silence, the shadows were still and unmoving, and everything seemed less alive, more like cardboard scenery. 

After Julian never showed up, Sydney decided to go looking for him with her mind. She pictured him, pushing her consciousness outward. Her Seeing skills had evolved over time, they were different now from when she was younger. It was more than just Seeing, now, it was almost as if she were astral projecting, some ghostly aspect of herself seemed to actually be present in the other location. It was remarkably easy to find Julian, but she was not prepared for what she saw when she arrived. In a sparse room that looked like a lab of sorts, he was lying on the floor, prone, shirtless, utterly pale. Two people in medical garb were learning over him, one had defibrillator paddles in each hand. 

“Clear!” yelled the other. The paddles came down against his chest, discharging their voltage. His body twitched sickeningly, and her hand flew to her mouth. _No, no, no. Charging. Counting. Waiting. No, no, no_.

_Clear!_ “We have a pulse,” announced one in a flat voice, as if it barely mattered. A few moments later, Julian opened his eyes and she nearly wept with relief. He looked around dizzily, blinking. And then, he saw her. Looked right at where she was, invisible to everyone else. Yet somehow, he knew she was there, she was certain. 

A female doctor strode into the room, kneeling down beside him. He looked away as she began examining him, shining a small flashlight in his eyes. “This was too close,” she announced to the other two in a thick Russian accent. “We can’t keep pushing him this hard, he can’t take it.”

Sickened, Syndey retreated, not wanting to see any more. When she returned, she had a splitting headache and tears on her face.

 

 

She waited for him the following night, hoping. She considered praying, knowing that was something people did when they felt anxious and in need of comfort, but she wasn’t sure how, or who to even pray to. Then, after what seemed like a very long time of waiting, Julian finally appeared. He still looked weak and pale, there were dark circles beneath his eyes and he moved more slowly than usual. Sydney hurried over, putting an arm around him. “Come on,” she said, letting him lean on her for support. “Let’s go to the roof.”

When they were there, he barely looked at the sky, just sank down, propping himself against the low wall. She settled beside him, not wanting to let him go, her arm still around him. Julian tucked his head against her shoulder and was silent for a moment. Then he said, 

“I wish we could die here.”

“Don’t say that. You don’t mean that.” Sydney tried to make the words seem firm. He coughed, another troubling, rattling sound, and her fingers tightened around him. “I do,” he told her. 

She couldn’t think of anything to say, words were stupid and failing, so she leaned down and kissed him. The idea had been in her mind since the other day. She’d never kissed anyone, but she had seen it in movies and television. There were different kinds of kisses, sometimes they were quick and close-lipped, other times they lasted longer, and that was usually the romantic, open-mouthed kind. She wasn’t entirely certain how she wanted this one to go, she was just trying it out. It was nice, she decided. He seemed to think so, too, because he brought his hand up around the back of her head, she felt him run his tongue against her lips and she parted them on instinct, letting him kiss her more deeply. 

Then he stopped, breaking the contact. She blinked at him, dazed. He smiled, but it was a sad look. “Oh, dear,” he said, shaking his head. “Damn it. God _damn it_.” 

“What?” she asked, slightly offended, slightly nervous. “Was that bad? I didn’t think it was bad.”

“No,” he said, seeming troubled. “It wasn’t bad at all. I just wish that this, right here, could be the last memory you have of me.”

It was a strange thing to say, and combined with his earlier statement about wishing they could both die, left her with a creeping feeling of worry and dread. “What do you mean? I’m confused.”

“They’ve told you about Romania, right?” Julian asked. 

For some reason, a deep, cold shiver ran through Sydney. “Yes. I’m going there in a few days. Why do you know about that?”

“This mission is very important to them. It’s what everything’s been building towards. There is an object there, inside of a case. It was created by Milo Rimbaldi, long ago, and it’s been irretrievable until now. That’s part of what they need you for, to open the case. If you do, Rimbaldi’s consciousness will be able to return. It’s a test. And whether or not you fail is irrelevant because either way, they’re not going to let you out alive. You will have served your great purpose.” He coughed again, miserably. “You’re a pawn. We both are.”

“Please, tell me how you know this,” Sydney asked, the full horror of what he had just told her beginning to sink in, dulling her voice to barely a whisper. 

Julian brought his icy hand against her face, gently running his fingers across her skin. “Because I’m the one they’re sending to kill you.”


End file.
